Countdown To Chaos, Week 12: Blech

Here we go down the stretch of the college football season with just one more week separating us from those exciting conference championship games – y’know, the ones where Bama will destroy some outgunned team from the East, Clemson will destroy some outgunned team from whatever the ACC calls their divisions, the Big 10 will stir up several dozen clouds of dust, the Pac-12 will play in anonymity, and the Big 12 will…never mind.

Thankfully, we’re gifted with treasures like half of the SEC playing games that belong in early September and big showdowns that aren’t that big this year. Is it just us, or has this year’s schedule been somewhere between meh and blech?

Louisville @ Houston – Just so we all understand the stakes here: the Cards are at #5, and Ohio State or Michigan is going to end up with two losses. Yeah, the Cougs have a chance to stop them, but when they don’t, there’s going to be a team that didn’t even win its division!!! in the playoff. (Late Thursday night note: okay, so maybe there won’t be a team that didn’t even win its division in the playoff.)

Ohio State @ Michigan State – Remember when this was a huge, huge game? Forget it.

Oklahoma State @ TCU – See above and remove one “huge”.

Florida @ LSU – Oh great, Saturday’s marquee SEC game stars a three-loss team without a coach and a former dynasty that’s entered the land of perpetual disappointment and isn’t checking out any time soon.

Washington State @ Colorado – You can imagine the level of delight in the Pac-12 offices that, in mid-November, this is the conference’s Game Of The Week, as opposed to…

Stanford @ Cal/USC @ UCLA – California rivals battle it out for…well, not much really, though ‘SC kinda sorta has a shot at winning the Pac-12 South, an accomplishment almost as exciting as finishing third in the SEC West.

Oklahoma @ West Virginia – It’s kinda sorta more or less for the championship of the only Power 5 conference that might be less attractive than the Pac-12 at the moment, and that’s quite an accomplishment.

UT Chattanooga @ Alabama – Dear Tide: We admire your dominance. Now stop wasting our time with bullshit games in November